Let Them Play

I want to ask you to consider doing something radical. It’s something specific. It’s kind of hard, but not so very hard. You can only do it if you are an adult. If you can pull it off, you’ll have a profound effect on many people. 

Remember the times when you were young and your family went to the home of another family to share a meal? Remember how you and the other children dutifully sat at the table only as long as you were required, and when finally dismissed you burst away to play? 

Maybe you went upstairs, downstairs, or outside – anywhere that you could play alone together. What did you do? Maybe you played dress-up, hide-and-seek, kick-the-can, soccer or baseball. Maybe you drew pictures, or romped in the snow or water. You laughed and you no doubt got into arguments. You gathered bouquets and ladybugs, maybe dug up clay and made pots. You showed each other secret places and cool stuff in the house. You looked at books and played board games, you brushed each other’s hair. Sometimes you might have done naughty things: pour paints into the wagon to make soup, open all the band-aids. You lost track of time, you sunk your self into life, and you played. 

 

Now consider what happens these days when you get together in groups with other people. What do the kids most always do? They sit in front of a screen. No matter how you cut it, this is not play. Those children are being robbed of their playtime by the adults who allow and even encourage it.

Oh yes, you may feel that the screen time you grant them is only for special material that you or friends have selected with care. It might be non-violent, or a goofy favorite from your own childhood, or a Disney movie, which somehow is always accepted as fine fare for young minds. It might even be a fascinating documentary; for we consider ourselves smart and cool, and we fancy that the movies we choose are good for the kids, distinct from the trash that others might show. 

You already know that there’s a world of difference between kids playing together and kids sitting passively (or even actively, as in the case of video games) in front of a screen. You already know that kids’ time to play together is essential for their development into mature and whole adults. So guard it! Protect the children’s time to play together. They can’t do it for themselves. You can’t do it yesterday or tomorrow – you have to do it now. If you wait until tomorrow, you’ll see how quickly that turns into never, how all of a sudden the children are grown and you’ve lost your chance to give them time to play together. 

Do you think it’s already too late—that they already have lost the imagination and creativity that is inherent in all children? Trust them. Give them time and space. Whether you are a parent or another adult friend of children, you can use your power for good: wherever children come together, say “no” to technology of all kinds. Watch out—now that they’re used to it, they might try to talk you into a movie as a reward for spending an hour not watching a movie! For all too quickly they have become skilled at negotiating for this vice that they now feel is their birthright. 

We didn’t mean to do this. All of this technology is still very new, and we are just beginning to learn how to use it without letting it use us. We will make mistakes. We will forgive ourselves and start anew.

Children need to live out their wholeness in order to believe in it. They need to discover that they can entertain themselves, that they can communicate and play with their friends. While they’re at it they will build happy memories of a place and people, and then take their turn at protecting and preserving it. This is part of our ancestral tradition of raising community-builders and caring citizens. 

Some generation of adults is going to have to reclaim and protect children’s playtime, and I propose it be yours. See if you can get a clean start in your circle of friends by beginning now with a collective ban on electronic entertainment where children are gathered. Remove it from your group culture. Start with your own home. Be brave. Know that your radical action is part of the preservation of the best of human possibility: to create, to relate, to cooperate, to imagine. To play.

Giant Puffball Day

Liz Rog, Decorah, Iowa

September 24, 2012

It's a mighty good year for puffball mushrooms. Anywhere you go, in the woods or a yard, you are likely to catch a glimpse of a big white volleyball that someone seems to have left outside to ruin. Suddenly you realize that once again you've been tricked by a puffball. All about town there is puffball talk, puffball happiness, puffball advice. Kids point them out to adults, adults tell puffball stories to kids. I have my own puffball story to tell.

My friend Elyse's parents called me the other day to say that they had a mushroom in their back yard and to ask did I want it. This fall our household has already been very well puff-balled. A few days ago Daniel and I even had a disagreement about how much puffball I was drying for winter—imagine it! An argument about the gentle and peaceful puffball!—but since these folks had so kindly called me about their mushroom, I wanted to at least stop by to acknowledge their puffball and thank them for the call.

When I arrived and they pointed through the picture window at the white ball out in their back yard, I squinted and cocked my head, confused...it looked very odd there, in the middle of a mowed lawn, and I couldn't quite get my bearings. Could it be that it was—quite large? Extremely large?

I walked out and beheld the mushroom. As I approached, my step slowed, in awe and humility here before what I now could see was a truly god-sized mushroom, poofing out of the earth like a giant's silky white meringue. I stopped there, feeling called to kneel in reverence. And then my heart jumped up and down inside my happy chest as I pointed, laughed, circled around, and sent out gratitude to the mystery and grace of the world. From that very beginning I felt her aliveness and she became She.

Imagine picking up a mushroom that weighs much more than a newborn baby, round and smooth, 4 feet in circumference. When I gently twisted out of the ground and lifted her to my bosom, I felt my being swell with the honor of her presence. I cradled her and was cradled in the arms of this mystery. This most wild being, born of invisible spores, had somehow managed in the face of drought and backyard mowing not only to grow but to flourish. Fate had then beckoned me there, and so I was given the glad responsibility of going forth with the puffball. I was aware of the temporal nature of this gift—for within a few days she would be shape-changing again. 

I loaded her into the front seat of the car, showing her to some neighbors on the way. Back home I showed her to more neighbors and took many photos so we could share the memory with others, but photography was not feeling at all like an adequate way to share this wonder. You need to smell it, touch it, feel its weight, see its white silkiness, its leathery elephant-skin, its bulbous moonlike craters. So I sent an email invitation to about 110 people, inviting them to a Giant Puffball Party the next night, where they could come see and then eat the biggest one ever seen by anyone I knew. I would also serve kale salad, corn bread, rice and pesto, calendula cookies, and fresh mint water.

I did not tell them, for I did not yet know, that we would also create a celebratory ritual for the mushroom-being. For, good ideas don't always come to us all in one rush; sometimes we start with a simple one, like inviting people to eat together. It's after that that we're  sometimes inspired by that primal part of us that loves to play and to pray, and if we're paying attention we can find ourselves cooking up ideas of which mushrooms, people, and the very cosmos might love to be part.
 

Night came and went. I arose with a plan for the day's chores and started in on it all. The mushroom sat on the counter, in no hurry for the evening's festivities. Meanwhile there were walnuts to dry, tomatoes to pick, lunch to make, letters to write. The puffball-being kept distracting, calling me to her...I found myself stacking a smaller puffball on top of the giant one, and then She became Sheila! You haven't even seen her womanly shape yet: those two bulbous forms that are both her buttocks and her breasts. They are whiter than any human, which makes them both ghostly and angel-like; ethereal, fleeting. I dressed her in scarves and hats. I changed her to a railroad engineer, with a striped hat and a red bandana.

Was it the descendent of the Saami and of my mushroom-foraging Polish grandmother in me that wanted to embrace this puffball so? Was it the mysterious way in which mushrooms connect and remember, reminding this mother of beloved daughters who are on journeys of discovery far from home that we are always connected? Was it the coming Crone in me that loved to celebrate her aging buttocks?

It began to feel odd, playing this way alone (I know you already thought that). How could I share this with others? (And was it the daughter of the park and recreation daughter in me that had to share this play with others?) I gladly abandoned my original plans for the day and turned my attention toward town, where I knew I could find people who would enjoy her. Then thump, thump went my happy heart: this is what I was born for. To give up reasonable plans in favor of tending to my soul and the soul of the world through making connections with a humble and glorious messenger of earth.

I called the middle school to see if a teacher there would like show the mushroom to her class. Yes. I called the newspaper to see if they'd like to take a photo of a sporific entity. Yes. I wrote an email to my group list of 100+ local outdoors people, to tell them the mushroom would be on display at the co-op in the afternoon. I re-invited them all to dinner. Then I was off to town!

All through the halls of the middle school heads turned and smiles erupted as kids and adults beheld the puffball. When the elevator door opened to take me to the second floor, a student in a wheelchair and two teachers looked out at us, first in shock and then in glee. It turns out, carrying around a mushroom is very much like holding a baby, or a ukulele—it is almost impossible for passers-by to not be glad.

Before entering Mrs. Nowak's classroom I set the giant puffball outside the door, with a plan to present it with fanfare in a few minutes. I entered and waited for my turn. A student returning from the bathroom entered after I did and raised his hand with great intensity, insisting that he had something to say to the teacher. “Teacher teacher!,” he announced, pointing at the door with excitement and some trepidation, “There's something....I don't know what it is!....outside....it's big...”

Mrs. Nowak and I exchanged glances, and she assured him it was nothing to worry about, that he would learn soon enough what it was.

I had 3 minutes to make a show of her. I first presented the smaller, every-day sized fall puffball. Then I asked the students for a desk drumroll as I went out the door and fetched the motherlode.....Ta-da!... and then stacked the smaller on top of her, plopped on the railroad hat, tied the red bandana around her neck, and there she was. I did not turn her around to show the back, no I certainly didn't. The students were excited just as kids should be, and for days afterward on the street I was approached by kids and parents who had been part of or heard about those 3 minutes!

When we arrived at the co-op, Pastor Mau sitting there in the deli eating lunch saw the mushroom-woman and helped me to realize that I was presenting the least interesting side of her head—that the smooth round side could be turned in favor of the bubbly side. It looked wrong to me at first, because I was seeing her as related to a snowperson, which I pride myself in making smooth like my daddy taught me. We have a special Polish snow-smoothing technique which I'd be glad to show you. But indeed the other side of her head had a nose of sorts, adequately whimsical and imperfect. Leave it to a spiritual seeker like a pastor to come up with the idea of showing our supposedly imperfect side and calling it just-right.

I didn't intend to stand right next to her the whole time at the co-op, but if you brought your favorite great aunt into a room full of strangers, would you leave her alone to meet everyone? No. That's how I felt, and so I stayed where she was, introducing her, telling what I knew of her story. I felt I was introducing the Queen of the Autumn. I felt 2012 becoming rock-solid the Year of the Puffball. I felt love for my community, who had the eyes to see this simple beauty. Many people had puffball stories to tell. I learned from Brett Mumford that in his experience it is impossible to get dried puffball to accept moisture again, which if it is true would mean Daniel definitely was right the other day about not drying so much. I learned from Jana Klosterboer the method for freezing: fry it up first, and when you take it out to use it, add it right to your dish (don't defrost first) and also it doesn't last longer than a few months in the freezer. Many photos were taken on cellphones, some of which came to my email and others which I saw on Facebook the next day. Julie Berg-Raymond came from the newspaper and took a photo. I invited each person to that evening's puffball dinner. Then I scurried out the door to get ready for the night.

But you don't get out of our town that easily—especially if you've lived here for 32 years as I have and most especially if you are carrying around a giant mushroom. On the way to the car I saw my friend Amy Weldon standing outside the yoga studio in the perfect late-afternoon sun, waiting for yoga class with a smile on her always-radiant face. I was drawn away from my path and toward her, and as I approached it just so happened that the rest of her yoga class was also arriving from all directions, and so there we had a grand introduction in front of the studio. Was it the evening sun, or the all-woman assembly, or their yogic natures? It was brief and big: there was much joy in the air there! 

 

I needed to buy gas for the car and stopped at my favorite gas station, Bob's Standard. Dan and Jeff were in there working, so I ran the puffball in to see them—and oh good, there were a few other customers standing around the counter chatting too, so 4 more people got to see her. Little did I know, on my way in that door someone near the pumps had spotted me and my load, and now came to ask me to come show whatever this thing was to her van full of sisters. Oh yes sister would I!!! Thus began a timeless moment for learning about each other, puffball talk, and family photos taken with me and the mushroom. These women were from all over the country, visiting Decorah for a sister-reunion. Their beautiful, quiet, elderly mother was there too, and I later regretted not having taken the puffball right to her door so she could touch it. Much happiness in that meeting, the stuff world peace is made of.

Finally, home. First things first! Since there would be an unveiling during the ritual, I needed to get her covered before anyone arrived. I put a nail in the ceiling, hung a hanger from that, and a large Indian print from that. The puffball sat on a high stand, an old green wire basket from the Decorah swimming pool in the 50s, inverted with a blue and white gingham checked cloth over it. Underneath the huge hanging veil, she was in her railroad gear.

A small group gathered. Luckily I've been around enough to know that even if you invite a hundred people to what might seem like an irresistibly cool event, you shouldn't expect a lot to make it because if you do you're likely to be disappointed. People are busy and all. Call whatever comes perfect. And so indeed, the perfect number did come—we were 8 of us in all. Jason, Rowan and Saer, Hannah B, Ellen, John S, Daniel, and me. Thank goodness there were two children—for what is what we do worth, if the children aren't there to witness it?

As we waited for the last folks to arrive, we cooked: we chopped huge amounts of garlic for the Puffball, ginger for the kale. Cookies were served pre-dinner, in service to a promise I made when I was a child to the children of the future. Jason opened a big box of wine.

And then the ritual began. It was at once playful and serious. Holy and lowly. We gathered around the kitchen island, with the shrouded puffball in the center.

I named the purpose for our coming together: to offer gratitude to this giant mystery of nature that had been given us. To celebrate the simple beauty of the autumn, and our place in it. I thanked Nancy and Art Cohrs for giving it to us.

We slowly circled around the island holding hands as we sang in a round, to the tune of 'Hey ho, anybody home'

Sisters, brothers, take your time, go slowly

Listen very carefully: simple things are holy...

Then we sang “O male/O le-mama”, a call-and response song from Africa that is mother earth flirting with the humans. Our puffball was quite the flirt! As we got going on this, the unveiling began—and behold, there she was in all her glory. Hoorah and bravo! How lovely! What joy!

I asked John Snyder to read some words he recently wrote down for us, representing his spiritual practice---'Hello,'

hello sky/hello cloud/hello tear/hello fear/hello birds/hello dear/hello heartache/hello thought/hello valley/hello horses/hello clover/hello my love/hello hello

And then we made a poem like that for the mushroom and the autumn, going around the circle 3 times to give each person chances to choose things to say hello to. Hello abundance. Hello buttocks. Hello dinner. Hello wonder. Hello …....when Ellen said “Hello Fun-Gal!” we all knew it was the perfect ending to our poem.

Then I brought out a collection of scarves, belts, necklaces, and my grandma's hats, and we dressed her up. Many times. Ellen was a star at this and I wished this part would never end. John Snyder took a lot of pictures of these creations. Oh she was lovely! And so changeable, yet with that puffball spirit shining through at all times! 

We sang a call-and-response song I'd scribbled on the back of a paper bag on my way into town:

When I was young/I was a spore/flying through the air/down to the ground

When I was young/ I was invisible/no one could see/ all I would be

When I was young/ I was a small one/ shining through thte tall grass/ growin' quietly

And now I'm grown/ a giant puffball/I've come to show you/ all we can be

I am I am/ I am I am/ I am I am/ A giant puffball

I am I am/ I am I am/ I am I am/a sacred being

I am I am/ I am I am/ I am I am/A giant friend

Next, we had the official measuring and weighing. Daniel measured, Jason was notetaker. Saer was the drum roller for each measurement, with John Snyder assisting him.

Circumference: 53”.

Length: 17 ¾ “

Width: 14 ½ “

Height: 9 ½”

Weight: Well...

This part is a little embarrassing to me. I have to be perfectly honest with you. I had weighed her the day before, with a witness and assistant present, and we had come up with over 14#. This is what I reported to all people in town, and to the newspaper. I told them—and this is true—that that is ¾ of the record heaviest puffball weight recorded. And 14# is definitely what it felt like when I was lugging her around the middle school and down Water St and also holding her up for family photos.

Sadly, when we weighed her at the ceremony, we came up with only 10#. How could this be? Jason insists that she could have lost 4# overnight, what with all that surface area. I think his confidence in this theory was affected by the contents (or lack thereof) of his wine glass. I can't believe she could have lost that much moisture in 1 day. My witness for the first weighing, whom I won't name because I don't want to embarrass any more people than necessary here, can't understand it either. It remains a mystery. Please know that I have not tried to deceive or exaggerate. Her bearing and her being need no proof by measure. But as my dear husband would say, sometimes things like that just happen to storytellers.

The last song we sang was written by my friend Laurence Cole:

Oh when we come into our calling

we become bells / calling to everyone else

Oh come, come into your calling

What a good song for finishing our celebration: connecting the ability of the puffball to come so fully into her calling with our own comings-into-callings. May it be so, and always more so.

With that, we removed the head and sliced into her white perfection. Not a squiggly larvae to be found, not one bit of yellow-turning-to-inedible-green. A perfect specimen. We fried her in lots of butter in a huge cast iron skillet. We smeared fried homegrown garlic and salt on each piece, a slab as big as a portabella. We tasted and moaned in delight for she was truly fine. We reveled in being alive, here, communing with earth and each other in this way. Jason told jokes, Daniel told a few of the day's Hometown Taxi stories, I told of the day with Sheila, others told of their days. We laughed and sighed.

                       ***********

I have read that the average puffball produces 7 trillion spores, each a potential puffball. If I understand mushroom botany, this particular puffball—which surely would have produced closer to 25 trillion spores—will, since we picked it, not be spreading herself around in that way.

That's okay. There is puffball abundance this year in NE Iowa. This particular puffball, my lady-friend for a day and a night, the September 24 visitor to our town, leaves a different kind of legacy. Today we can't imagine what that legacy will look like over time, once it is mixed in with all of the other beautiful and good things to which we are giving our attention. But we know that our collective attention to this mystery has spread countless invisible spores into the soils of our lives, just as sunrises and ladybugs and fawns and dragonflies and fiery maples and clear streams always have and always will.

Maybe someday Rowan and Saer will invite my grandchildren to come see a maple sapling that they found, or a nightcrawler, or a dungbeetle. They might sing a song together and sit in silent reverence. By then they may not even recall Giant Puffball Day 2012. But they will surely remember what they were given at birth, what their very bones and soul know and what they are reminded of daily in the woods and the fields where they live:

We are family with this earth and all her beings.

We are each other's fullness.

We are kin.

 

 

Parenting, pt.1

January 26th, 2005

Dear Alicia and Jason,
You have been so kind to me and so generous with your appreciative words for Ida. Of
course, when you give me credit for anything about Ida I want to hasten to say that – as
you will see if you have more than one child – there is so much that they are born to be,
and so much of parenting is simply allowing that person to unfold. But by your comments
you have caused me to look retrospectively at the years when I was a young parent of
young girls and trying to figure out what to do with this huge gift/responsibility/challenge
of being a parent. Looking back this way, long after the days of young children but not
too long after, I realize that I actually do have some opinions about it all. I am going
to share them with you, because I trust that you will take them for what they are: one
person’s experience, based on one person’s perspective on the world. Thank goodness
there are lots of ways to parent well and to live well, else we would all be doomed. Also,
lest you get the impression from reading this that I am the world’s most amazing mother,
I need to tell you right off the bat that I did not do all of the things on this list. Some
of them I lived by, some I meant to live by but only rarely pulled off, and others I only
realized too late. Still, I believe in them all equally.

Promise me that, after reading this, you will never in all your years allow yourself the
thought: “Yikes, here comes Liz with all her parenting opinions! We might be doing
something that she disapproves of - HIDE!"

I’m serious about that promise. Here it is.
“I, the undersigned, understand that Liz believes that there are lots of good ways
to do things, and these are just some random thoughts from an average person. I
will not ever feel judged by her."
(Sign here)____________________________and _____________________________

OK. Now that that's settled, I'll begin…

Some thoughts on Parenting

1. Hold her. Snuggle her at every opportunity. Sing to her. Carry her everywhere
you possibly can.

2. Take her outside to see things. Go on walks, a lot. Not exercise walks (at
least, not all the time), but walks that are for stopping and seeing things, large
and small, of the natural and human world. Try walking in silence sometimes,
only pointing to what you see. Gather treasures, and use them to decorate
the house. Eventually, learn the names of some of the plants, birds, and
insects…Take these walks until you have allowed your lives to get so busy that
there’s no time for them, and then spend the next 20 years trying to reclaim that
time. Alternately, don’t let that happen.

3. Hide or throw away the TV before she is old enough to think of it as part
of everyday life. That would probably be about…now. I am shy to write this,
because it is so radical-sounding and sure there’s a ton of great stuff on the TV
and all, but I honestly can say that I have witnessed a difference between kids
who grew up with and without it. #1, they have a ton more time to explore the
world in and outside of their own minds. #2, you cannot protect children from
all of the negative influences of the TV – gender stereotyping, consumerism,
violence, and did I say consumerism? – even if you are totally vigilant. If watching
TV is normal to her, I guarantee you she will be watching it in places where
you are not there to help make good choices. If she goes to, for example,
grandma’s and the rule is “no TV”, then it’s not a problem that you and your
parents have different ideas about what’s appropriate for a child to watch. Plus,
if it’s understood that she doesn’t watch TV, then your parents will actually play
with her! And read to her! Believe me, breaking the shocking news to people that
she doesn’t watch TV is nothing compared to some of the other society-induced
challenges ahead.

(Eventually, we got a TV for watching videos. We watch about 6 each year,
and it is a very special event for us. We know that there are thousands of
great movies out there to watch, but we can't afford to even try to watch 1% of
them, lest we miss out an each other any more than we already do. Needless
to say, we choose our few videos vary carefully; we require a more detailed
recommendation than “It’s REALLY good!”)

4. You can start sitting with her and looking at books really soon. You know that,
I know. But I have a bone to pick with some of the reading industry here. They
try to sell us reading with the fear factor: fear that our kids won't be brilliant if

we don't follow a certain reading regimen. Defy their competition model! I say,
reading to our kids is not for the purpose of building a brilliant brain; it’s for
having a sweet time together that is about as simple, cozy, relaxing, and non-
consumptive as you could ever ask for. If one thought in terms of building brains,
one might read to her even when it didn’t feel good, or do it with an attitude that
frightened the child. Brain Building Bothers this Broad. Build love, understanding,
memories: something else works on the brains.

Anyway, you can start reading chapter books way earlier than I would have
imagined. By age 3 we were enjoying very simple chapter books – but of course
we never left behind all of the beautiful picture books. Buy a few of your favorites,
for surely they will go out of print, and you don’t want to miss the sweet look
in her eye when she is 10 or 15 and gazes again at those pictures that she
remembers so fondly. She is likely to declare, with a catch in her voice, that
those were beautiful days, "back when she was young", reading those books
together. And that she wants to read those same books to her child.

Someday, perhaps as late as age 9 or 12 but possibly as early as age 5, she will
learn to love to read herself. Don’t rush her, wise parent! Reading together is one
of the sweetest parts of your brief years together, and once she reads to herself
if is harder to find the time to read together. Though not impossible: Ida and I still
have morning snuggles and reading almost every morning of the week.

5. At all times, try not to burden her with that nasty feeling of hurrying that you
might be lugging around with you. I repeat. Do not hurry her. If you let her go her
natural child’s pace, wonders will blossom out of her imagination. Gems will fill
your home. You will have the honor of looking through the open windows of her
eyes into the amazing world of her-ness.

Sometimes you have to hurry, of course. But if you don’t watch out, you’ll be
always hurrying. So make it the rule not to, and then only break it when you must.

6. Don’t let your sweet and loving relatives overdo it with the toys. From the very
beginning, help steer them toward giving things that can be appreciated, and not
become burdens to you and to the ecosystem. They want to give the right gift, but
they may need help: be so brave and kind as to help them to spend their money
well. Offer them catalogs, and also ideas for non-things. We may think that kids
have a God-given need to open things wrapped in thin paper and a bow, but
really we create those children starting at age 1 or 2.

If all else fails, as it surely sometimes will, help her and yourselves by taking
regular trips to the Depot to make donations. Hurry, before she thinks it’s normal
to be surrounded by mountains of plastic.

“Oh no! Liz is knocking at the door! Hurry – stuff the plastic toys in the closet! NO!
Don’t open the closet – she’ll see the T.V!”

7. Keep snuggling. Keep reading. Keep singing. Keep meandering outside. Keep
slowing down.

8. Eventually you will be thinking of getting her together with other children.
Playgroups are nice, but try to keep them small and not overly frequent. It’s not
that I think children should be kept in isolation – not at all! Rather, by being a
part of your life they are often with people of all ages, and that is the very best. A
playgroup of 3- 4 kids that meets once a week will probably be plenty for you and
her both, for a while. Better yet, see if there can be an age range of at least 3-5
years, and things will go even better. And don’t try to get stuff done when those
kids are at your house, or you’ll end up angry. Instead, have the moms or dads
over at the same time, and that will be the best part of the whole day, assuming it
isn’t your little angel who slaps Sylvia on the face.

9. Speaking of getting things done, I hope that you can face reality about your
new-found and permanent loss of time in your new role as a parent sooner than
I did. It took me getting deathly ill before I began to believe it. Have you noticed
yet that the clock now moves faster? Have you told yourself the lie that it's just for
now while she's so young and new? Ah, yes. I remember.

10. Try to always say “yes” to her requests. This sounds ludicrous, I know! But I
stand behind it, and here’s why. If you don’t try to always say “yes”, you will find
yourself most often saying “no”. That’s because, from the perspective of the life
you used to have before children, almost everything she asks for is outrageous. .
A hassle. Utterly unreasonable. Paint? Now? I was just about to do the dishes!
Read? Now? I was just about to check email! Of course there are times when
you have to say no, for sanity or safety, but I submit that a parent should train
her/himself so that the automatic response is “yes” until proven too impractical.
Even then, think twice. You might end up having the time of your life if you just
let go of that straight line thinking you’ve been practicing so long and LIVE A
LITTLE!

One caveat: This practice only works if you keep no junk food in the house and
do not have a TV available.

11. Count on it that these slow, sometimes tedious and uneventful-seeming
days will be among the best days of your entire life. Including falling in love.
Count on it that, too soon, the whirling world that we live in will swoop into your
cozy home, taking you away from each other much too often. Count on it that,
living in Decorah, Iowa, the “educational opportunities” will be so numerous as
to overwhelm you. You’ll have to make some serious choices if you are to stay
sane. And that’s not even including the possibility of attending school – I have no
concept how families make time for that.

12. Speaking of education: my favorite book about home education, available
at the public library, is “The Successful Homeschool Family Handbook”, by
Raymond and Dorothy Moore. I mention it here because I am going to pass
along some of their advice. They say that a child’s “school” week should consist
of 3 parts. One-third should be helping around the house - stirring the batter,
raking, and more as they are ready - all of which she will love to do because it
is side-by-side with you, the most important people in her world, and it is clearly
important and useful work. One-third should be community service - visiting the
seniors, picking up trash, marching on Washington, stuff like that. Finally, one-
third should be “book work”, which the Moores define as anything like reading
together, drawing, doing Lego's…it changes over the years, of course. This last
category is what we proud graduates would call “school”, but the Moores urge us
to let that be child-led for the first years until the child seems to be interested in
more academics, which for many children left to their natural development can be
as late as 9 – 12 years old.

What a refreshing way to think of education! It’s not all about getting as much
information into each little head as possible, but rather it’s about connecting with
the wider world and contributing to it as well. It’s balanced.

13. Practice your spirituality together. Of course you will do that. I just throw
that in here incase I ever give this to anyone else, and also in case you had any
doubts that we were bereft of a spiritual dimension. Ours just doesn’t have a
church building.

14. As you see, I’m imagining little Rowan at an ever older age as I proceed
through these thoughts…

Make it a practice to share with her almost everything about your adult life. It’s
easy to know that you’d share the happy stories of your day, but I would submit
that it is equally important to share the harder stuff. Talk freely at the supper
table about the argument that you had with your friend, and how you felt, and
what you did to get through it and come out feeling better about each other. Or
didn’t. Talk about the man who has mental illness, and what is or isn’t scary
about him, and what it might feel like to be him. Talk about it all, but not in a
didactic manner – you’re just sharing your heart with your family, which happens
to include this small person. Like magic, her presence at such openings of the
heart will call forth in you something more pure and good than you knew you had.
In presenting these stories in a way appropriate for her tender ears, you will start
thinking with her pure heart and find answers that are more loving. She will learn
so much about the real world in this safe and protected way, and before you ever
expected it she will amaze you with her deep understanding of human beings,
their needs, and their strengths. By the time she is 10 she could be your best
counselor, because you have shared with her important information about the
way you MEAN to think and behave. She will hold you to it.

Occasionally, you might – by accident or not – have a spousal argument in front
of her. I am not necessarily recommending or dis-recommending that, but I can
tell you something from experience: her presence will cause you to behave
better, and may even call forth in you some wisdom that you would have shoved
aside for the sake of being right. It’s kind of like arguing in front of God: How
embarrassing!

15. Look to her as your very best, most respected teacher. Offer her that much
respect, and more. It’s easy (most of the time) to do when she’s an infant and
you’re obviously in the presence of a miracle. But practice doing it when she’s a
toddler, and a young girl, and a pre-teen…practice it when she doesn’t seem like
she could possibly be human, she’s so irrational-seeming. And when she’s taking
all of your time and energy. When parents go and gaze lovingly at their peaceful
sleeping child, they might use that moment to remember to practice studenthood
the next day. If you keep thinking that way and expecting the lessons, they
absolutely will come. Don’t miss them!

16. Kids love it when the year rolls around to the same place it was a year ago
and they get to do the same thing they did a year ago. Try to keep track of those
things that you do for holidays or your new family special days, because they
grow more and more special each year that you repeat them. How nice – instead
of wearing yourself out trying to keep on creating new things to do together, you

can do it best by mostly staying with or building on the old! On Memorial Day we
walk to a certain place and have a picnic and read each other poems, wearing
old hats that were my grandma’s. “This is living!” We say.

17. An admittedly radical thought given the world we live in, regarding the time
you spend gathered with other families:
When our kids were small, we would go over to people’s houses and eat, and
the kids would all play dress-up or hide-and-seek or something else they made
up, as the parents sat and chatted. Or we’d go to a meeting or rehearsal, and
the kids would all take care of each other and play together. Nowadays, I’m
very sad to report, wherever we go there’s some stupid adult who’s had the
unfortunate forethought to bring a movie, and by some horrible chance there’s
always a video player handy, and so at these community events the kids do
not play anymore. It is so, so sad. I’m not sure many people even remember
any more that the kids have a grand old time entertaining themselves, and that
incidentally they become better human beings for having interacted in that free-
style, creative manner. Ask anyone whose kids are my kids’ age and they will tell
you I am a nutcase on this matter. I accept the distinction. I realize it is hopeless
for much of this generation, but some generation of parents is going to have to
take their children’s playtime back, and I propose it be yours. See if you can get
a clean start in your circle of friends by beginning NOW with a ban on electronic
entertainment/babysitting when your families are together. Just remove it from
your group culture. Otherwise by the time they're 5 and are begging for movies
all the time, you will all be sorry. The voice of doom has spoken.

18. On Discipline.
Saying “yes” as often as possible doesn’t guarantee a perfectly behaved child.
Your best teacher will have to be disciplined sometimes, but if you do it right it
will not have to happen very often at all. Here are my thoughts:
-You know what’s right. She may or may not be old enough to understand what’s
right in a particular situation, but your intuition will tell you if she is old enough to
learn a different behavior, with or without the understanding. I think of discipline
as helping to show her what behaviors do and don’t work. Ok, right now she’s
not old enough to know to keep quiet at the concert – that’s obvious. But, for
example, at some point she is old enough to learn that if she hits or is mean,
she will be removed from the place where she was enjoying herself. I think that
should begin the first time she does it. Maybe she doesn’t truly understand why
to not be mean, but you owe it to her to show her that that doesn’t work. That’s

hard on her, and even harder on you (speaking for myself, I always HATED to
leave a party early!)

-Never discipline her in front of others. It’s disrespectful of her, and it also robs
you both of an opportunity to talk in an environment that could bring out honest
thoughts and resolutions.

-Believe in her ability to understand the right thing to do, but be really patient
while she figures it out. Hold her, love her, and believe in her. That way, even
if she doesn’t figure it out today, she knows that she is safe in your love no
matter what. Maybe you have to say how angry that thing she did made you
feel, because doggoned it you are – but it’s difficult, when you’re holding her in
your arms or in your gaze, to convey that anger in an intimidating or aggressive
way. You are human, and you are both helping each other. If you’re not on her
side, she is utterly alone. Always be on her side, but give her the gift of endless
opportunities for good behavior – behavior that works in the world.

19. Hold her.
Snuggle her.
Sing to her.
Read with her.
Ramble with her.
Believe her.
Build a new world with her.

You will do these things naturally because you love her. But here’s the
beautiful irony: that these acts so plain and simple are the very heart
and soul of your family, and are the most vital to observe. You’d think
something so important would be painful or distasteful! How fine that these
basic (and free!)practices are what mean the most to a child and a family.

We were made to love these children.

All of my love to you, Alicia, Rowan, and Jason. Welcome to the lucky land
of children.

Parenting, Pt. 2

June 9, 2010
Dear Alicia and Jason,
It’s been five years since I wrote you a letter that rambled on and on with some of my random thoughts about parenting. Rowan is five already, and sweet Sayer joined your family a few years ago. You are now four.

After composing those thoughts and sending them to you, so many more came to mind that for weeks I kept a piece of paper in my pocket and took notes toward a second installment. Then life crashed on forward and I never got back to it. Eventually I lost the precious notes and concluded that the second chapter would never be written.

But Ida started her summer babysitting jobs this week, and last night when she came home she said, “Mom, how do people know how to be a parent?” A big and wonderful question, impossible to cover over the supper hour! But as a start, I got out a copy of my letter to you and read it aloud to her. She listened intently, and then she asked for a copy! I stepped back and realized the beauty of the circumstances: Ida is babysitting your Rowan for the summer, this little Ida who is now a young woman, who is wondering about parenting.  In only five years, so much has changed for both girls, and for you and me as well. This reflection caused another flood of experiences and opinions to come to mind, and this time I aim to get some of it on paper before the notes go missing.

Five years ago you signed the agreement stating that I can say these things without fear that you’ll believe I’m stating The Only Way To Parent, so I’ll trust that you still understand that. We’ll let this little paragraph serve as the simple but serious reminder of the fact. To that I’ll add: now you’ve been parents for five years, and you surely have a bushel full of your own ideas and opinions. Even after 20 years of parenting, I remain completely interested in all the variety of good ideas of others. Do you know, sometime during the ‘90s I set out to compile a book of local parenting ideas? In the end all the parents were just too busy to fill out my survey – so I’m left writing up my own, and once again risking that those who read it will perceive wrongly that I think I know how everything must be done. That prospect almost makes me shrink away from the project, but I will proceed nonetheless, hoping that you and anyone else who ready this will cut me some slack.

I am writing here about some of my ideals. As often as not, I did not live up to them. I still had to keep sight of my ideals, my something to aim for. Some of these ideals came to me as a direct result of a moment in which my parenting was shamefully immature and un-loving. I could tell you lots of stories of all the things the girls and Daniel remember, things I said or did which are embarrassing and even horrifying. Ida tells me that she’ll never forget the time I intensely threatened her and Sophie, during a time when they were arguing and I was fed up with them, saying that I was considering moving up to Roseville (my folks’) and leaving them behind. Could I have said something so cruel and careless? I want to think it’s not true, but Ida’s memory is pretty trustworthy. I humbly report this incident to you along with the good news that both Ida and Sophie seem to have overcome that day as well as many of my other follies.  I still assert the right to bear ideals, no matter how much evidence is revealed to me about my stumbling path to this place.

To begin, then.
   

1.  On Being Perfectly Wrong

The adult world tells children that it is not ok to be wrong. If they are in school, this view is absolutely inescapable, from the very beginning: pretty much everything is framed in terms of whether you get it “right” or “wrong,” even when there aren’t red marks on their papers and grades on their report cards.  You can choose to homeschool, and limit exposure to that destructive way of thinking about learning and living, but even then you have to watch out for your own underground stuff seeping out. You can’t completely get away from it, of course, for we are all of this place and this culture, but you can start to pay attention to the questions: what’s so bad about being wrong? What is learned from being wrong? Why do adults feel it’s important to be right as often as possible? How can we ever find new ways of doing things if we can’t try something new, and how can we try something new if we’re afraid of risking being wrong? Does the need to present oneself as right build community connections? If we wanted to encourage in our children the freedom to feel safe being wrong, how would we do that?

Model the ability to be graciously, curiously, joyfully wrong. Show your interest in what caused this idea, action, or attitude to not work, and show that whether or not it worked has nothing to do with your goodness or lovability. Then the children will grow up to be inventors, heroes, Buddhas.

2.  On Food

Everything people say about starting out on the right foot with regard to your family food culture is true. If you want them to eat vegetables and whole grains, feed those to them from the very beginning. Beware, lest you end up with a macaroni and cheese monster.

3. On Selfishness and Jealousy

Good luck teaching them how to deal with selfishness and jealousy.  For these emotions, I can’t imagine a better learning ground for us parents than watching our own dear children suffer through the results when they act out of them.  I’m sorry I don’t have any helpful suggestions here; I just wanted to shine the light on the issue, and say that you’ll learn a lot about your own selfishness and jealousy and ego by watching your darlings. I’m not necessarily saying they are mirroring you! – rather, that you can learn a lot about yourself from watching the feelings that rise up in you as you watch them make mistakes and cause pain to themselves and others .

4. A Simple Ritual

The girls and I share a lovely ritual: I take tea at the teahouse with each of them, separately, a few times each year. The official purpose is usually to make plans for the coming school semester: what classes does she want to take, what music lessons, what other stuff does she want to do that I can help set up? In this way we encourage the idea that one needs to look ahead and make plans in order for things to happen, and also that creating a special time for conversation is valid and effective. I also am really happy to report that it’s always been something that we both very much look forward to – there has never been a sense that this was an obligatory, unpleasant parent-child meeting.

Meeting at a special place is really different from sitting down together at home – we’re much more likely to get our agenda talked through, plus more stuff that comes up because we are having this specially-planned time, both orderly and creative. Personal questions come up, and are more likely to be answered because of the special environment. We practice the art of civilized, mature conversation. I model what I want them to know: the ebb and flow of topics, the back and forth of listening and talking. And the taking of notes where pertinent!

5. On Preserving Hope

They are growing up in a world in which it is hard to avoid news about global warming, oil spills, wars, and lots of hatred. I have a strong opinion about parenting in this climate: protect them from these stories as much as you can, for a long time. I’ve seen parents who offer too much bad news to their children at too young an age, and it can cause the children to be frightened, confused, hopeless, bitter, angry, and cynical. They will learn of these things soon enough; when they are young, let them learn to cherish the world, to see the best in it, so that they will want to protect it. Let them grow up with a joyful vision shaped by their own beautiful imagination, not warped by all the darkness. I’m no expert on cognitive development, but isn’t it easy to see that a nine year old shouldn’t be saddled with huge burdens that they have no power to affect, such as mountaintop removal or an oil spill or even the hatred some people have for the sexual identity of others? Better to simply live-out-loud the normalcy of your beloved gay friends, and the beauty of the mountain, and the story of the whales. Sometime down the road they will learn the other parts of those stories; they will be outraged, and they will be outspoken about the way it’s supposed to be. 

6. On Praise

When Sophie was a baby I read part of the book “Whole Child, Whole Parent.” There was a section that had a huge impact on me, about the practice of praising children. I read it and immediately knew it to be true from my own experience as a child, and ever since then have not praised my children or others.

It said: imagine that you are a little girl sitting alone making a painting. You are completely engrossed: you are humming, you have no sense of time or the space around you, your tongue is hanging out, you are one with this painting. Then an adult comes along and says “I really like your painting, Suzie!”

The trance is broken. But what’s worse, this well-meaning adult has now thrust a mirror between you and your painting; you are caused to look at yourself, the maker of this thing that caused someone to praise you. The magic connection between you and your painting is gone; now it is about what the adult thinks, and needing (if not the first time, then surely eventually after some years of receiving praise) for the adult to like your painting. Why would it ever matter whether the adult likes your painting or not? Why does the adult think it should matter to you?

Sophie and Ida are now 20 and 18. At some point when Sophie was in her mid-teens, she asked me about this subject; she had noticed that our family was different with regard to this issue of praise (along with a few others). I told her the story of the mirror, and she understood. She admitted that she had sometimes heard others being praised by their parents and felt awareness that she didn’t receive that, and thought it might feel good, and wouldn’t have minded a little praise… but she said that overall she thought my explanation made sense. And I do feel that both girls have a confidence in their capabilities that comes from the best, most reliable place – their own perception.

I don’t mean to imply that I never said anything nice to them about themselves; only that when I did, I tried to frame it in terms of the effect their action had on me, or the general wonderfulness of all of us humans: “Thank you for taking care of me while I was sick, Ida – it felt so wonderful to be massaged and sung to!” (rather than “you were such a good nurse yesterday – maybe you will grow up to be Mother Teresa or a doctor someday.”) Or, “I’m so glad I got to come to the dance performance, Sophie – I always learn so much when I come to these performances. Sometimes it makes me cry, it’s so beautiful, and sometimes I’m bewildered by what’s going on…” (rather than, “Wow, you were great, once again! How did you get so talented, girl?”)

7.  On Parenting Other People’s Children

I’m sorry to have to write this one. I wish I had figured it out differently, but I didn’t and now it’s too late so all I can report is what I learned:

Don’t question another parent’s choices in parenting their child, or report about something their child did that you think needs to be addressed, or enter into ANY conversation, EVER, about anything remotely negative-seeming about their child. It’s not worth it, ever. The chance that they will take offense are about…99%. I suppose it’s natural: if they don’t stand up for their child, who will? And parenting is challenging enough, without some know-it-all friend who can’t possibly see the whole story trying to tell you how to do it. Even if Sally DID scream obscenities at a child when she was at your house, and pinch him and hit him and punch you, don’t try to address it with her parents. Instead, find a backdoor way of not having Sally over very much. Can you believe I’m writing this? I know it is cowardly and even dishonest, but trust me – a different choice can be very, very painful and destroy adult friendships. That’s all the farther I got with this one. Maybe someday when we’re all a little more evolved away from our egos it’ll be a different story. Maybe your generation is already a little better…I’m just telling you the facts of the ‘90s. 

8.  On Poetry

Let’s talk about something sweeter and lighter!
Read poetry at the supper table, and when you go on picnics. Make reading poetry together into a normal aspect of your very special lives. Put poems on the walls, in your own handwriting. The bathroom walls are an especially good place, because they are so regularly visited.

Such simple ideas, they’re almost not worthy of mention – but the children won’t grow up to love poems just because you want them to. You have to take action – not once, but over and over throughout the years, in a variety of ways.  Then, even if they never take a great poetry class, they will still have poems as their friends; and even if they take a terrible poetry class, they will still have poems as their friends. The way I see it, the mystery of words in poems is one perfect way to touch God. A really fine gift, for free.

9.  On Language and Gender

I was raised in a household that paid attention to the subliminal messages we convey about our worldview through our choices of words. For example, we were right there in the ‘70s when many Christians began to use inclusive language to name God, and we watched as our intentional use of non-gendered god-words reshaped our very image of that Being. I’m grateful for that background in understanding the way our words create reality, and I know that I need to be ever mindful of this. Recently this has manifest in a new awareness that about gender and language.

For example, there are a number of gay and lesbian couples in our neighborhood and in other parts of our lives. I’ve noticed that straight people sometimes feel compelled to identify them as “the gay couple….” – however lovingly and full of acceptance, still they need to add that identifier. I have resisted that impulse, feeling it at the least unnecessary and at worst somehow indicative that we still have a long way to go until we stop needing to identify people by their sexual orientation. I asked some Lesbian friends what they thought about all of this. They said that either way works – to name the person’s orientation or not – as long as you are consistent: if you identify a couple’s gayness, then also when you’re talking about a straight couple go ahead and say that. It makes a lot of sense, and I’m glad to have learned this new way of thinking about it. Sophie and Ida have watched this journey, and thought a lot about it themselves over the last few years as they took gender studies classes, and I think we have laid groundwork in all of us for openness to changes we can make in our language to bring more peace and inclusion to the world. 

Another tip from my wise friends: When addressing a group, if inclined to say, for example, “Ladies and Gentlemen!” go ahead and add “And Everybody Else!” to include anyone who might not feel welcomed by the first two descriptors: people who are bi-sexual, trans-sexual, or…anything else!

10.  On Making Comparisons

Parents and other adults often do this crazy, unhelpful thing: they compare and contrast siblings, naming interests and qualities as if they could be permanently possessed by one and only one. “Tanya is my outdoor girl, my tomboy. Olaf, he is my bookworm.” Well, I guess that means Tanya’s got the outdoor thing all tied up and there’s no room for Olaf in the woods, and Tanya might have to sneak in a read, since she’s not “the bookworm?” Why do we parents think we have to name such things? Surely it comes from a loving instinct: we want to encourage this child to do what she loves, and we feel that we can do that by naming and affirming her love in the presence of others. But again, this puts a mirror between her and her passion. It also causes her to feel that this interest is an obligation – now she has been labeled “the tomboy”, and must uphold it. What if she wants to play with paperdolls, and society has already taught her that tomboys don’t play with paperdolls? Well, then she mustn’t and she won’t.

11.  On Weariness

I was tired a lot. Are you tired a lot? Remember when you thought that once they slept through the night you would feel more normal? When I see photos of myself from the last 20 years, I can always see that tired look in my eyes, no matter how happy the occasion. So I guess I didn’t ever get that one figured out either, and have no advice to offer.  I was happy though. I think I survived it ok, and I think you can too, but I hope you can find a way to not be weary as often.

12.  On Parents Speaking with One Voice

I’m sure that you have often heard this advice: on questions and decisions pertaining to their children, parents should present a unified front. They should voice the same opinions, whether they really share them or not. I think that in many cases this is false and impossible, and the children can see right through it, later if not sooner.

As a child I regularly witnessed my parents holding different opinions (mom was generally more strict, dad more lax) and witnessing that very normal reality provided me with the perspective that there is more than one good way to act toward someone you love. I never felt like one parent loved me more than the other, even though one was more strict. They balanced each other out.

I’m talking here about mundane daily decisions, such as, “Can I sleep at Sally’s tonight?” and “Can I skip my chores this morning so I can go for a walk?” I imagine there is a threshold that any parenting couple finds, where the decisions shouldn’t be considered a big deal. Bigger ones, like how to be consistent when disciplining a 2 year old or what course of education to follow in the coming year, would be harder to decide unilaterally – though in many cases, a couple will naturally ‘choose’ one of them to be the leader on certain kinds of decisions.

I agree with the experts of course that parents mustn’t put their kids in the middle of a disagreement, mustn’t make them the pawn of their own opinions. A child shouldn’t be asked to take sides in an argument of their parents, and even when they are teens and could easily do so I find that they know to not do that. But for a kid to grow up recognizing that one parent will answer one way and the other answer another way, and navigate their asking accordingly?  I see no harm in it – it’s the way of the world. Different people see things differently. It is important of course that both the ‘winning’ and ‘losing’ parent be a good sport and recognize the relative insignificance of this specific decision.

Why not use these differences of opinion to present the children with the opportunity to witness something beautiful: the mutual respect and flexibility of these two people that love each other and love the child, and that our differences are nothing to be afraid of?

 13. On Favorites and Judgments

I wonder when it was in our cultural history that we began asking each other what our favorite of anything and everything is: what was your favorite class this year? Who’s your favorite friend? What’s your favorite memory from camp?

On the one hand, I can see this form of asking as nothing more than a simple way to make conversation, to ask for some reflection within boundaries (rather than” Tell me about everything that happened today, Jonny!”) It goes hand-in-hand with the other question we parents ask kids: “How did it go? Did you like it?” We’re just curious, and besides that’s how our parents probably asked us about our day.

But these types of questions unfairly ask the child to judge a whole experience – to sum it up with a thumbs up or thumbs down, or to choose the “best” (most favorite) aspects. Isn’t there another way we could ask them to share some of their thoughts, questions that wouldn’t ask for a wholesale judgment of “how it was?” I’m sure we can think of ways, once we begin to try. Really all we’re trying to do is engage in conversation, so the specific entry point doesn’t matter. “Who all was there today?”, “Did the weather hold out?”, “Did you learn a new fact you can educate me about?” or “Did Suzie and Sally get along better today?” all invite responses that are based on observation but not judgment. The conversation may well lead into more reflection on her feelings about it, and maybe even judgments – but as parents we should avoid setting up every experience as something that the child is expected to judge.

 14.   On Life Sentences

A wise homeschooling parent once said to me, “Adults shouldn’t try to turn a child’s passing interest into a life sentence.” Who hasn’t seen overly enthusiastic parents do this to their children, and even felt in themselves the impulse to seize the moment, do everything possible to help a young passion become a life’s calling?

I tried to adopt this philosophy of non-attachment to a child’s interests and it guided me to refrain from announcing what Sophie or Ida was good at, or what they might become. I tried to stick with the facts: Ida is interested in midwifery, she makes chocolates, she makes art. Sophie is attending dance classes, studying piano and makes art. Never something that claims an interest as belonging to one person, or assumes they ARE that interest, such as “Sophie is our piano player, Ida the artist and midwife.” This left them free to explore whatever they wanted, even if their sister already did it, and also left them free to move on to another interest without fear of disappointing the adults.

15. On Money and Consuming

Here’s something really unusual! This practice is surprising to me still, even though I was first introduced to it before the girls were born. The idea came from a chance conversation with young man, a Luther student who was a customer at the co-op at the time when it was next to the museum office, near Mill and Water St. He told me that ever since he could remember, he, not his parents, had bought his own clothing. I was shocked and thought it really odd – even cruel! – of his parents; but he seemed to think it was perfectly normal, and not difficult in the least. I even remember thinking, outrageously, “well, maybe that would be ok for a boy; he must not have had very much interest in how he looked, must not have had much love for clothes.” Yes, I admit that I thought that. At the time I was sure that I knew everything I needed to know in order to have a correct conclusion about it all.

Pretty soon I had these two girls to clothe. During their first 6-10 years the girls mostly wore hand-me-downs so the question of who paid for clothing was moot (aside from some very special and appreciated gifts of clothing from relatives!) We kept hand-me-downs that were too big, and also off-season clothing, in big tins up in the garage, and twice a year we went “shopping” together: with a screwdriver in hand, we walked up to the garage on a warm day and pried each tin open to see what treasures it held. Then we took our “purchases” down to the front yard and laid them out in the sun to make them smell better. For a long time, this was perfectly enough.

Eventually the gravy train of hand-me-downs got shorter, and we began to take occasional trips to the Depot to look for clothes. The girls were amazed at the abundance of possibilities under that one roof, and of course wanted to take home many things. They didn’t yet grasp that each item needed to be paid for, and then washed and folded and picked up from the floor many, many times. Without even giving it much thought at the moment, I told them that they would be paying for this clothing with their own money. All of a sudden it made so much sense; for how else would they come to understand the reason that we weren’t going to buy everything they wanted?

As I experimented with my parenting questions about consumerism, ownership, and money, I hadn’t forgotten the story of that Luther student. On the contrary, I’d say it’s almost embarrassing how much I thought about what he’d told me. I guess I had a lot of money issues to work through. Who doesn’t?

I remember going with my mom or dad to buy new clothes for me at Target or HarMar Mall in Roseville. I loved that special feeling of anticipation, knowing that I was about to get something new and beautiful to wear: an Easter dress, some new school clothes, a plastic art apron. It felt like a sweet and important ritual of childhood, even a birthright…I’m sure that’s why I was so shocked at the Luther student’s story. But I’m really glad to have been handed this other way of thinking about it, because it turns out that it fit better with the way I wanted Sophie and Ida to grow up. Now these two girls do not consider abundant and ever-changing clothes and styles a birthright, and they don’t take beautiful clothes for granted. They have always bought their own clothes and they consider that normal. I think that the practice of making those decisions for themselves has helped shape not only their independence but also their sense of themselves as conscious consumers.

16.  On Allowance

I had a few good ideas about this topic, surely gathered from some book I read, and we practiced them for a while but weren’t organized enough to sustain them throughout the girls’ growing up. But here’s what I remember:

        Allowance shouldn’t be connected to work done to help around home. Helping is a normal expectation, everyone does it, and it is not paid work.
        A portion of allowance is required to be set aside to give to others in need. We had a cup on the kitchen table, and when allowance was given, each girl set 50 cents into the cup. Daniel and I also put money in the cup. Every once in a while we had a conversation at dinner about where we would send our $20-$30; I would tell them about some good organizations and the work they were doing somewhere in the world, near or far. In this way I was able to introduce them to both their responsibility to help others financially, and to the brave work of their brothers and sisters.
        Make the allowance big enough that they can actually buy worthwhile things with it, rather than giving only enough for (for example) random junk food. Then, require that they spend that money for certain things they really value, such as music, clothes, pets.
        There was also an idea about requiring that 1/3 of each allowance be put in the bank. What a good idea! But in order to do that I thought we’d need to give the girls something like $15-$20/week, and I couldn’t stomach that amount.

Though we lived frugally and required Sophie and Ida to pay for most material possessions (clothes, toys, gifts, etc), we rarely turned down any request to pay for experiences: lessons, concerts, festivals, classes, camps.

17.  On the Infallibility of Adults

In the part of the world where I grew up during the ’60s and ‘70s, adults maintained an image of being completely self-sufficient and almighty. One rarely saw any of them moved to tears, or stressed, or even sad. But my mom cried in front of me sometimes and allowed me to comfort her, and so I grew up with the sense that I was called on to comfort others, even those more grown-up and experienced than I. Because I knew that my mom was sad sometimes and that I could help her, I understood that all of us are vulnerable and all of us are capable of offering comfort.

Therefore I say: Let them see you hurting and let them comfort you. Don’t give them the illusion that adults are infallible or emotionless. Give them a chance to show their compassion, to practice their born impulse to comfort and protect. Let them watch your process of sadness and or anger, even your irrational thoughts, and later make sure to let them see your coming around to forgiveness of yourself and others, to the possibility that you were wrong, to being able to name the goodness of the person that hurt you. In this way they will surely grow up with a deep sense of the subtle complexities of our human relationships, rather than seeing all people as either our friends or our enemies, as either the good or the bad people.

Stay in one place long enough that they can see you having fun with someone who they know you had terrible argument with just last year. Stay long enough that they can see you bringing a post-partum meal to someone that they know caused you rage only last month. Stay long enough that even when your life seems to fall apart before their very eyes, they can witness how there’s another train, always, taking you back to the home of your heart, right here where you always were.  Stay long enough that they can come to trust that all things pass, and we can always choose to love again, there is no place else to go but there.

18.  On Making Stuff

Make things together. This is really important as a whole, but at the same time it doesn’t matter what you make. Nor does it matter how many times you make it, or even how well you make it; the only point is that the children grow up knowing that people make things. 

Make food, of course – but for the purpose of this goal I don’t think it even matters whether you are making raw milk cheese, or whole wheat pretzels, or deep fried donuts. Make things with wood and nails, and actually use what you’ve made, no matter how clunky it might be. Make books, sew the spines and decide what to write or draw in them. If they are going to school, then you especially need to make sure to show them that worthwhile projects happen at home where there is no credit given or withheld and the works are never graded. Write down their spontaneously sputtered poems, in front of them, so they’ll know that normal people make poems. Make presents to give others, make suet balls for the birds, make massage oils….all of these things are both so easy and so hard to do. So easy, because nothing matters but to begin that something, and to be together making whatever it is. So hard, because there’s a little toxin that you have to keep purging from your mind: the notion that whatever you do has to be up to some standard, or that you have to maintain some level of accomplishment on a regular basis. Yes, do make things often over the years – but really all you can ever do is one thing, one day, one time. If you think about all you WANT to be doing over the years, you will be overwhelmed and incapacitated. In this case, forget about a master plan to ensure they become proficient at any particular skill; no matter what specific opportunities to make things they have, each fits perfectly into the master plan – to grow up knowing they have what it takes to make things with their own hands, head, and heart.

19.  On Hiding Your Sword

When Sophie was born someone gave me the wonderful gift of a book titled “The Tao of Motherhood,” by Vimala McClure. The book offered many wise reflections on parenting, and my favorite one went something like this:

Many times your child will challenge you, push you beyond your limit to endure: whininess, clinging, meanness, selfishness, any number of behaviors that will, at the least, embarrass you, and at the worst make you loose control of your temper.

Vimala said: you may think you are in charge, and you can act like you’re in charge – you can make time-outs, you can take away toys and privileges, any number of things. All the while you have at your side the tool of your adult power – your “sword,” and it can be effective – but ONLY if you leave the sword in its sheath. The minute you take it out, that is to say, the minute you show your intense anger or your violent reaction, you have lost. Because once you’ve taken it out, you discover the truth: the child’s sword is bigger than yours. The child can take this behavior even further, and you have no more sword to show – you’ve already pulled it out and divulged its true nature: you can’t really stop this behavior by your sheer will, since you are not willing to harm the child. Keep it in the sheath. When we lose control of our temper, we always lose the battle.

 20. On Learning Out Loud

That’s what I call it when I remember to process my hard times out-loud, in front of the kids, before I’ve got it all figured out. I have problems: the friend about whom I have angry or sad feelings; the work situation that challenges my patience; the unclear ethical dilemma, etc.  My hope is that, by presenting the unsolved problem in its multi-faceted, non-black-and-white reality, I inspire this young person to work on solving it too. I don’t insist on her solving it the same way that I do. I do however try to insist that she not write people off as bad guys or good guys. Even if I have lowered myself to that, I try to acknowledge it out loud, and voice the fact that I don’t like that simple conclusion I’ve made, that I am looking for a better way to deal with it. You see what I mean? I want to be honest, even if it’s embarrassing sometimes to divulge my smallnesses. How else will the next generation grow up to be more wise and good than ours, if we don’t take advantage of these chances we have to learn out loud? How else can we ensure that they don’t grow up with the illusion that adults have it all figured out?

21. On the Opening of the Flower

This image I read about long ago in some book, and it has sometimes helped me to let go of my ego in parenting. It surely sounds Buddhist:

Human consciousness is a flower, slowly opening to reveal the glorious center: peace, harmony, wisdom, all that stuff. Each generation is a layer of the petals, opening closer and closer toward the center, and as more of the petals open we come closer to a way in which deep consciousness can be accessible to all.

This means that not only mustn’t I as a parent feign more wisdom than my child; I must assume that she, being the next generation, already has a head start on something beautiful. I have put her on this path by giving birth to her, but unless I uphold and expect that wisdom from her, it may become stuck. I can’t presume to know exactly what it is that she can see more clearly; I only need to keep believing that it is there, and to not allow my ego to be threatened when she speaks her wisdom. In that way, by trying to stay out of the way, I can spare doing damage to her as she grows into trusting her role in the opening of the flower.

(I trust you understand that I am not referring here to “wisdom” about, for example, how many popsicles to eat or how late to stay up.)

22.  On Gifts, Siblings, and Gratitude

When I was a child it was common practice among parents to measure the gifts and the opportunities they gave their children and to ensure that all was equal among them. Sometimes the measurement was in actual physical size, as in making sure that the boxes under the tree were of equal physical measurements, and sometimes (often simultaneously) the dollars spent on each had been counted and were assuredly equal. Certainly no one got more items than another. Usually the gifts had to be quite similar as well; if one got clothes, then the other did too; if one got a toy then so did the others. If one were taking piano lessons, then the other could take one weekly lesson as well, but not two.

I disagree with this practice, and as a parent I have I actively rebelled against it. Is life equal and fair? Are we all the same, do we all have the same needs and desires? Do we really want to train our children to be looking over their shoulders to make sure their sibling didn’t get more than them? Do we want our gifts to pretend to reflect the amount of love we have, all equal between them? Can you say that your love for your different children is equal, or is it as unique and immeasurable as the personality of each child herself?

In the interest of getting this point across to our daughters, I was perhaps a little more radical than would have been necessary. Our gifts were almost always simple and cheap if not free and homemade, similar to many families we know around here.  But sometimes we didn’t even give birthday presents to one girl or another, or sometimes at Christmas with all the relatives we saved our simple gifts to give at home, so that the kids wouldn’t see their gifts in comparison to those of their cousins. Sometimes both girls got a gift at the birthday of one of them. Sometimes the birthday girl was urged to make gifts for others. But I don’t ever recall giving matching or even similar gifts to the girls, and I spoke out loud and often about the importance of giving from the heart instead of giving with the burden of measurements attached.

I wanted them to grow up to not expect gifts, to be surprised and amazed and deeply grateful when they were given something, rather than the other thing we can so easily create: a child who, by the time she is 3, is already tearing open each present, glancing at it briefly, and then demanding to open the next one. They aren’t born with that sense of entitlement. Gifts should be received in slow consideration and reverence; and yes, our children can eventually outgrow the selfishness we and our loving relatives accidentally plant in them with the giving of beautiful and plentiful gifts, but I recommend trying to nurture their natural sense of non-expectation and of gratitude. This requires a constant and conscious effort, living as we do in this land of abundance.

23.  On All the Cool Stuff You Won’t Get Around to Doing

I had so many cool ideas about stuff to do with the kids, as I know you do too, because all of us parents dream in our own perfect ways of the wonderful childhood we want to create for our children. I got ideas from books, from my own childhood, from friends – there were way too many! Some of them I organized onto lists: “places to go on vacation,” “songs to sing at holidays,” “other families to have over to supper,” “carpentry projects for Daniel and the girls.” Other ideas were stuck in my head, haunting me and taunting me that I would never get around to them, which largely was true. Even now many of those come easily to mind, down those old worn paths that lead to nowhere: “Have a whole day every year when we do not speak out loud.” “Walk at night under the full moon every month for a year.” “Do all the things throughout the year that Tasha Tudor did in her book A Time to Keep.” “Take the girls to see mom and dad once a month.” I better stop recalling these things before I start feeling wistful….

-Because the point I want to make here is actually a cheery one. Here it is: Don’t think that you have to do all that stuff, and do it a bunch of times, and be all organized about the big picture of their childhood, in order for them to grow up whole and happy. You know what? You can go camping two times total, and as a teen they will look back and say, “remember when we always used to go camping? I LOVE camping. When I grow up I’m going to take my kids camping all the time like you did with us.” You may think that you rarely took the time to sing to them at bedtime, but if you did it some, that is all it takes for them to know the beauty of that gift – they weren’t counting the number of nights, and they can’t see the regrets you might have about all the nights you felt too tired or busy to mount the stairs.

So leave behind the regrets about what you already haven’t done, and the projected regret about the never-to-be-accomplished lists, and just enjoy all that there is in front of you right now. Grasp and believe that these gracious children will be thanking you for all you did do, even if you think you barely did it, and then you can laugh out loud with me at the benevolence of the world.

24.    On (What I Imagine to be) a Great Book

I once read a book title: “The Good-Enough Parent.” I never read the book; the title alone saved me from myself.

25.  On Facing Your Own Self-Image

Don’t talk yourself down in front of your kids. There are two different issues here: Stuff that you can’t do or be, that you are at peace with; and on the other hand, stuff that you aspire to do or become and may have some regrets about not having done or become. In the first case, there’s nothing harmful about saying, “No, I don’t expect I’ll ever get selected to fly to the moon,” or “Fixing the brakes on your go-cart is something you’ll have to ask your mom about, because it’s not something I’ve decided to learn how to do.”

But watch out about the stuff that you wish you were good at, because your regret or fear about it can easily come out looking like self-denigration. Let’s say you’ve always wanted to be able to make music. Instead of, “Dearie, your mom is not a musician and never will be one. That’s just not going to happen,” say “I have it in me to have a ton of fun playing the banjo, but I haven’t started learning yet. When I get started – watch out Banjo Pete!”

What’s the difference? I think kids are really sensitive to our own sense of ourselves, and they easily sense our attitudes about ourselves and adopt them as their own. If we model giving up on something that’s really important to us, proclaiming that we’re incapable of accomplishing something that we yearn for, then they will do the same. It’s not fair to hand them that attitude.

26.  On What You Teach

Did I read this somewhere, or did a wise old parent say it to me? “No matter what you teach, what your children really learn is who you are.” How’s that for saying it like it is? In other words, no matter how smart a talker you are, you can’t conceal from them who you really are. We all know this, for we were once kids and saw plenty of the hypocrisies demonstrated by the adults around us. But the first time I heard this saying after becoming a parent, I knew it had come around: now I was the adult that kids would be able to see right through.

This realization didn’t make me decide that I had to become a better hider (how hopeless), nor did it make me accelerate a quest to become a perfect person (thank goodness, I’d given up on that long ago). Instead what it made me realize was that I had to be honest with the girls about myself, at every turn: if I told them that I thought such-and-such (forgiving each other, exercising, writing in a journal daily, serving the poor, etc.) was the way we should strive to be in the world, then I had to accompany that ideal with my own real shortcomings, and model self-acceptance in spite of the shortcomings.

As soon as you can, I recommend accepting this: that your child will know your heart and soul very, very well. Don’t fight it – use the fact to inspire you to be both as good and as honest as you are able.

  27. On Wholeness – Yours, and Theirs

Of all the things I have to say about parenting, this may be one that I feel the most deeply.

When each of them was born, it was easy for you to recognize the perfect miracle of what they were. You served them in a selfless way such as you had never experienced before. Each of them gave you the chance to be the most loving and strong person you’ve ever been.  How could that have happened? What is it about a little baby that enables us to love in such a perfect way?

Try to answer that one, or don’t – but what matters is, to never forget that first vision of their perfection. Take note, every time you gaze at their small sleeping bodies, and remember all that acceptance and forgiveness. Carry it in your heart all the time, and call it forth over and over. Remember it when they are two and have hit the neighbor girl. Remember it when they are 13 and can seem so selfish. Remember it when they are 19 and seem so lost. It’s all still there in each of them.

It is given to you, their parents, to remember their perfection, the holiness that they brought to earth. If you will just remember it, believe it, and trust that it’s there even when it doesn’t seem apparent, then you will keep it alive for them. In doing that, you also keep alive and vibrant your own ability to love in the way you did when you first beheld them.

Insist on believing in their holiness, even when you can’t see it. Call it forth in them, and trust that it is there. Then this child too will be able to believe that she or he is part of all Goodness, even when they feel very lost. If you get really good at practicing this, you can learn to cast onto other people that eye-that-sees-Goodness-in-them. In doing this you can,  I can, we all can begin to offer something divine to the part of the world where we live. 

Do you hear what I’m saying? It has nothing to do with how often we live up to our ideals as parents, nor with how often our children do beautiful or terrible things. Its only this, and just this simple: every day we get another chance to practice seeing the best in another, in this one other who has a way better chance at evoking our love than anyone else ever could. Our reward for getting up and trying, again and again, is unspeakably beautiful:

    ⁃    to watch a person grow up knowing that they are enough, that they are whole, and that we all are enough, we all are whole.